


Set me as a seal upon your heart, / as a seal upon your arm;

by yolkinthejump



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale's ring r i p, Biblical love poetry bc sometimes u just Gotta, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Marriage Proposal, Pure indulgent fluff, so more like ineffable fiancés, this was G but Crowley got hot under the collar about defiling angelic artifacts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 16:13:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19479463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yolkinthejump/pseuds/yolkinthejump
Summary: Sometime in the future, Aziraphale and Crowley go on a picnic. Aziraphale does a magic trick.Alt. title is "Picnic Park Proposal."





	Set me as a seal upon your heart, / as a seal upon your arm;

They don’t picnic often, but doing so is another indulgence they are able to share in, now.

Spring is fading into summer. They’ve just caught the edge of it: the abundant cherry trees lining the through-way and scattered across the green are in full bloom, magnolias and various other botanical wonders joining in. It is uncommonly mild, warm with a bit of a breeze, no rain on the horizon. Lovely weather for a holiday—and clearly locals and tourists alike had thought so, too, with the vibrancy of activity surrounding the area. Laughter fills the air. The park is filled with a pleasant geniality of spirit, good food and easy conversation and the warmth of companionship and the spark of play.

It is no small joy, to be surrounded by such love, and Aziraphale basks in it as Crowley does the sun.

The two of them sit somewhat in the center of it all, Aziraphale with legs out crossed neatly at the knees, Crowley’s so sprawled wide as to practically be obscene, as usual. Crowley in his customary black, additional jumper to counter any chill (Aziraphale’s jumper, until this morning; cursed darker in shade but not smaller in size. “What? It’s the _style_ , angel.”) and Aziraphale in much his same, sans coat and tie. He’d even left a top button undone. Today is about relaxation, after all.

They’d laid out a blanket, and now arranged to one side sit the remnants of their lunch: wicker basket open, empty wine bottle inside, tins formally containing an assortment of tiny sandwiches and fruits and cakes stacked neatly. Glasses with dregs of sweet summer wine sit safely in their holdings.

Blanket, basket and its accessories all tartan, of course.

When Aziraphale had presented his supplies, packed and ready for the day, Crowley had balked, eyebrows creeping above his glasses: “Bit match-y match, eh?” he’d said, but Aziraphale beamed at him and proclaimed, “It’s a set!” and Crowley could only sputter in response, fondness blooming on his cheeks, before he simply shrugged and held the door open for him.

So here they are. All around them families enjoy time together, and children caper about. Couples lounge in the grass— _other_ couples, Aziraphale thinks, beatific, even after all this time—just as Crowley and Aziraphale do: merely two in a sea of many, enjoying the day. If the pair of them seem a bit _too_ inconspicuous, if it is almost outside the possibility of luck the way that football and frisbee alike pass safely on by or romping dogs give them a wide berth, well, it’s not as if they’re hiding, there’s no cause for that anymore, but there is something to be said for the importance of one’s privacy. A minor miracle barely worth the name is all it takes to have themselves their own pocket of the park, tucked away in plain sight, visible but undisturbed.

The whole thing is all very picturesque. Aziraphale is tremendously pleased with himself.

Crowley stretches, catching him out of his reverie. He tilts his head back, black glasses to the sky, soaking up the sunlight, and his spine lengthens just a tad past what should be possible for his human skeletal structure. Aziraphale wants to run a hand down his back, feel the sinewy strength of him.

So he does.

“Alright?” Aziraphale scratches idly at his shoulders through the soft fabric of his newly-pilfered jumper, and Crowley hums, bends into it. When he feels for Crowley’s wings where they rest in the aether the hum tapers to a groan and Crowley shivers into his palm.

“Perfect, angel.”

It is a wonder, to touch so casually.

Aziraphale gives Crowley a final scritch before he reaches over to pull a book from the basket.

The instant the hand leaves him Crowley makes a sad, exaggerated noise, playing at a pout. His lips twist with contained mirth.

Ever obliging and benevolent and just as reluctant to stop touching once they’ve started as Crowley is, Aziraphale makes an exaggerated noise of his own and pats the blanket next to him. “ _Aw_. Come here, you insatiate creature,” he says, and Crowley grins.

With only a moment of hesitation about doing so in public, he’s removing his sunglasses—his gorgeous eyes shine to _twinkling_ as he slinks down on his stomach to lay along Aziraphale’s right side. He bends one arm under him, head resting in the crook of his elbow, hair falling sweetly over his face. It glows warm as a hearth, the sun catching it alight. He’s been willing it longer again. His other arm stretches out, spindly legs… spindling without a care.

Boots discarded, Crowley stretches bare toes beyond the blanket to wriggle luxuriously in the grass. The cuffs of his jeans are rolled up, exposing the delicate bones of his ankles, the fine curve of his heels…

“Read to me?” At the question, Aziraphale’s attention flits back to Crowley’s face, finds his amusement plain, eyes crinkling at the edges: he knows. He takes such delight in Aziraphale’s blatant attentions.

“Oh—why, of course, my dear,” Aziraphale says, resting a hand in Crowley’s hair. “Do you have a preference?” His fingers knead just a side of rough.

Crowley groans softly, and murmurs a “Nah,” sloppily. “Juss _ss_ ’ wan’ hear your voice.” Laying on his arm as he is smushes his cheek charmingly.

Aziraphale gives a bow of his head in acknowledgement, and with a glance upward, and a thought, twin shadows are cast over them; a bit of shade as the sun creeps ever higher. The source is nowhere to be seen. There will be no finding it in this realm. Wings stretched just sideways off this plane of existence, Aziraphale cracks open one of his classics and begins to read.

Everything fades away but the warmth of the sun, the ease of each other’s company, the crisp turns of pages and the accompanying recitations. The rhythmic motion as Aziraphale sifts through Crowley’s hair, the feel of it a gentle cascade through his fingers, is a steady comfort. Crowley is so vulnerable like this, so open. The bounce between chill and heat of the season can energize him and drag his limbs to a stall in equal measure, and in no time at all. Seeing Crowley allow himself this peace is a true gift. His more tender emotions usually so contained, a habit perfected over _millennia_ , bubble to the surface. The air is thick with it.

Long moments pass before the sheer _feeling_ pulls at Aziraphale until he can’t help but look away from his page, go quiet with a finger marking his place, to glance at Crowley instead. Crowley stares back. Has he been watching him read, this whole time? (Aziraphale knows the answer to this, and shivers pleasantly.)

“You’re very loud, my dear.”

“Oh?”

“Mm. Enchantingly so,” Aziraphale says, bringing the hand still clutching the book to his chest. He reaches down to tuck a strand of hair behind Crowley’s ear, and Crowley winks at him. Cheek.

The motion of his caress causes the gold of Aziraphale’s signet ring to catch the sunlight, reflect back in Crowley’s brilliant amber eyes, and Crowley reaches up, takes Aziraphale’s hand in his. He strokes over the ring a few moments, thoughtful, before rolling onto his side and propping himself up on one elbow. The way his jumper falls around him in excess makes Aziraphale ache with tenderness.

“Ehh, had something like this myself, didn’t I? Must have. All your lot do.”

There is a puzzling wistfulness in his voice. Aziraphale places the book safely away, tucks his wings back, and watches him.

Crowley scrunches his face up, thumb playing over the ornament, pressing a little too harshly into the indent of the wings. “Ring. Like you’re married to God or somever.”

“That’s nuns. Um, figuratively.”

“Tch.”

“And they don’t wear rings. Crowley…” Aziraphale says, gentling, as if Crowley is a wounded creature he doesn’t want to spook.

Which he is, in a way, really. Even now.

His eyes skitter over and away from Aziraphale, concentrate back to Aziraphale’s ring. A frown falls over his face.

Aziraphale waits. Squeezes his hand.

“Makes you think you belong to something...” he mutters, and Aziraphale makes a broken noise at that, the beginning of protest. Crowley continues past it, and presses in firm on Aziraphale’s palm, the heat of him traveling up his arm, sitting in his throat. A worry line stands out on his forehead. Aziraphale is weighing the reception he’d be likely to receive if he were to bend to kiss it away when Crowley shakes himself out of it, and says: “You know, I half expected this to burn, the first time I touched it. Angelic and all.”

“I would never allow that.”

“Mm.”

“I mean it, my dear. This is—oh, it’s a part of me. It couldn’t hurt you, Crowley, no more than I could,” he murmurs. With a short huff he adds, “And it isn’t as if I had to worry about that model-snake belt of yours, em, biting me, the first time that I…”

After a moment, the corner of Crowley’s mouth ticks upward.

“Too right. I’m the only one’s allowed _that_ pleasure, angel.”

Aziraphale fears he’s losing the plot. “And I’m not, um, well, I’m _certainly_ not—I’m not married to God, that’s ludicrous,” he says. “You _know_ it’s ornamental.”

“You do like your pretty little decorations.”

“And you don’t?”

The brief melancholy slides off him as Crowley gives a lazy, rolling shrug. “Rings’re different.”

Crowley raises Aziraphale’s hand to his mouth, placing a kiss on his ring with a possessive hiss. He lingers, breath puffing warm and wet, the slightest hint of teeth against Aziraphale’s skin.

 _Enough_ , Aziraphale thinks, his heart giving a fluttering little skip. If he doesn’t act now, he’ll be overcome. This is a Sign, this talk of _rings_ , of belonging—it’s a Moment, and he just about trips over his tongue to seize it—

“While we’re on the subject of rings _!_ ”

It comes out a bit hysterical, honestly. He clears his throat.

Crowley stares at him, unblinking. Still holding his hand.

Practically bouncing, Aziraphale straightens up excitedly, tucking his legs underneath him. “I’d like to, I—I’ve been waiting, for, _oh_ , my dear. I’d like very much to show you a magic trick.”

Crowley groans, letting go of him and flopping back dramatically. “ _Heaven,_ you know how to kill a mood, angel.”

Undeterred, and wholly expecting such a reaction, Aziraphale continues: “I’ve been practicing, you see, and I think I’ve just got it—no—no, I’m _sure_ I’ve got it right. It’s only that the material is, it-it’s not exactly earthly material, is it? Not _of this world_ so it was quite resistant at first and the _sizing_ , oh, dear, I can’t tell you what a pain… And as we’ve talked, briefly, about it, it's the done thing… not for us, maybe, but when has that ever stopped… It’s just that it’s been such a lovely time today, the food, the weather, the flowers, _you_ , of course, the people, um,” he pauses to take a breath he doesn’t need. “The food.”

“Said that.”

Aziraphale purses his lips.

“I have no idea what you’re on about, but it’s fun,” Crowley says liltingly. “Do keep going.

“Oh—” Aziraphale makes the mistake of looking at him, and gets caught by the giddy face he’s making, the toothy smile. Utterly charming and entirely distracting. “Oh, _you_. Let me finish.”

“I’m not doing anything, angel; go on.”

“Right,” he steels himself. “Right.” Little sparks go off in his chest. “Tally-ho.”

Crowley mouths ‘tally-ho’ silently back. Aziraphale ignores him.

He flexes his fingers, eager to do this now that he’s started, lightheaded and jittery. Quick as a flash he makes a motion to reach behind Crowley’s ear—

“Ta-d _ah_ ,” he says, voice a whisper of emotion, Setting the Scene. He holds before him a ring, pinched between his thumb and pointer finger.

Crowley looks distinctly unimpressed. “That’s your ring. We were talking about it seconds past. You’ve just slipped it off.” His tone could dry out a second Flood.

Aziraphale smiles, aching with it, full. He holds up his free hand in an _oh, just you wait_ motion, unable to stop himself squirming happily.

“Angel, please, you didn’t even switch hands…”

Aziraphale repeats the flourish, a flamboyant flick of his wrist. The hum of magic—‘proper magic,’ Crowley calls it, a true Holy, angelic force—pulses briefly around them.

One ring has become two.

Crowley’s mouth falls open, soft. Aziraphale preens.

Gone are the wings, the embellishments that marked it as seraphic—the gold rings Aziraphale holds are smooth. To look at them, they’re just everyday wedding bands.

“ _Angel_. That’s the same…?”

Aziraphale smiles at him, and wills his hands not to shake.

“Are you really…”

“Yes!”

Sitting up, Crowley says, “Wh—it—uhehh.”

Poor dear. Like early days. Can’t get a handle on his tongue. Aziraphale feels much the same, and he’s the one who prepared for this. He closes his hand over the rings, cradles them in the center of his palm. The cool thrum of them beats steady like a pulse. He tampers down the bursting, effervescent joy and he finds his voice, unable to help a tease: “I know I’m supposed to be on one knee by modern standards. I do apologize.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley breathes, after the moment hangs. His voice catches. He tries again. “Aziraphale. S’fine. Don’t think I could stand up anyhow.”

Aziraphale clicks his tongue at him. “Oh, darling; sweetest, most dear thing,” he says. “Please don’t try. You’re wobbly enough as is.”

A noise chokes out of Crowley’s throat. “S _sss_ ’fine,” he repeats, with effort.

“Would you like some more wine, dearest?” Aziraphale asks. Crowley shakes his head. “Oh, I’m a bit frightened I’ve broken you.” He isn’t—Aziraphale can _feel_ Crowley, can sense his regard, the fondness of him bright to the point of painful, stinging at his eyes—but it earns him a short, gulped laugh. When he extends a hand to rest on Crowley’s knee, Crowley takes it, whip-fast.

Crowley stares at their hands. With his head bent, his red hair glows its own halo, capturing the light in a blaze. His brilliant eyes shine. His over-sized jumper falls over his shoulder. The whole of him is shattered open, vulnerable like Aziraphale has rarely seen. “Hus _ss_ ,” he starts. Stops. He runs his tongue over his teeth. “S _s_ o we’d be hu _s_ bands, then?”

“If you’d like,” Aziraphale says, brings Crowley’s hand to his mouth. “I know we’ve spoken of it, before, _stepping up_ our partnership, as it were, and it’s been such a _nice_ day. I couldn’t resist teasing you with the magic trick, my dear, I just couldn’t.”

“‘Course.” Crowley’s vocal cords work uselessly in a few stutters before he just sighs, cheeks puffing out theatrically. He pulls his hand back from Aziraphale, knuckles lingering over his lips as he goes. “Right,” he says. Carefully contained. “Give it over, then.”

Instead of placing the ring in his outstretched palm Aziraphale catches his hand, holds Crowley’s fingers, cool and spindly as the rest of him, delicately in his own, savors the warmth of him. He smiles gently and slides the ring into place himself.

Their eyes lock as the ring travels past the final knuckle. Crowley’s pupils fill, wide and round.

Something in his jaw flutters and he says, barely audible and full of wonder, “It feels… like you, it…”

“It goes beautifully with your eyes.”

Crowley sniffs. Aggressively. Glances away.

“And it fits! Oh!” Aziraphale lets go of Crowley with a squeeze and claps his hands together. “Oh, I’m so—I’m so glad.”

“How does it feel _so much_ like you?” Crowley flexes his hand, eyes soft, as if hypnotized by the band’s glow. He’s right to feel Aziraphale in it, worn by the angel for centuries upon centuries as it was, and split into two with such care. He snaps his fingers, suddenly full of nervous energy. “Obvious. Give me yours.”

Aziraphale is happy to.

Already made malleable by Aziraphale’s many practiced ministrations, the band is used to being Changed, but not by a demon: it fights him. Crowley holds the ring between his fingers and narrows his eyes, willing it to do as it’s told. It quivers, going blurry at the edges, but whatever Crowley wants to happen is not. He grumbles under his breath, going a bit hoarse, “C’mon, you blasted—you damned—for Heaven’s sake, _uech_ , be good, for Aziraphale, _you_.”

There is a pop, followed by something reminiscent of a great sigh.

Crowley grins, brings the ring to his mouth, and _bites_.

The speed at which Aziraphale’s eyes widen, his eyebrows shooting upward, is dizzying.

One canine glints white, dancing on the edge between ‘tooth’ and ‘fang.’ Aziraphale holds his breath as a shimmering starts from the point, coils down in a thin shadowy stream, darkness itself winding around the band and curving the gold. It looks, well. Spooky. It smells faintly of sulfur. There might, in fact, be steam involved. But as the dark spreads to the edges it is not a sinister kind of dark: it blankets as one would to comfort, as the ring is wrapped up in what Aziraphale can identity with a sharp pang as a familiar warmth, a distinct sort of doting affection. Cultivated over six thousand years.

A whimper slips Aziraphale, refusing to be caught by the hand he has drawn over his mouth.

The black dissipates, and the ring is left at first to appear unchanged, before Crowley tilts it into the light. His mouth curves mischievously. “Hah! Smidge of me in there for you, angel, there you are.”

When the gold hits the light just so, there is a depth that emerges on the surface entire, a pattern of tiny, glittering… scales.

Aziraphale is unable to speak as Crowley takes his hand, slides the ring onto his finger. The cool gold pulls at him, anchoring. It is more than a _smidge_ of Crowley he feels. His heart fills with visions of Eden. His eyelids flutter with it.

When he opens his eyes, Crowley is holding his own hand to the sun, palm up. Admiring it.

“Funny thing,” Crowley says conversationally. “Never really went in for jewelry, me.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says. “We can always find something more—”

“Shut up. I’ve never taking it off.” Gritted teeth and all, there’s no mistaking the choked emotion in his voice. Aziraphale’s heart skips in his chest and Crowley clears his throat, eyes shifting away awkwardly. There’s a furtive glance at his glasses on the blanket, out of reach only by human standards, really, he could conjure a way to hide if he wanted—but it is a very human thing, this moment. His free hand clenches in the grass.

Aziraphale reaches out, tentative. Takes his left hand in his own.

“What you said, about belonging…”

He kisses Crowley’s ring, his fingers, his palm.

A smile cracks over Crowley’s face. His eyes, saurian and singular in beauty, hold without reservation a splendor to outshine the _sun_.

Crowley shifts closer, up on his knees, and Aziraphale primly tucks his legs to the side to accommodate him. Crowley’s eyes stare unblinking, pupils wide, giddy smile on his face as he comes closer, closer. Long fingers burrow under Aziraphale’s waistcoat, rest easy against the swell of his belly. The heat always does make him a bit _fresh_. And he has many more reasons than the weather just now, after all. There is a familiar expression on his face, and Aziraphale thanks him silently for his restraint; currently it is easy for passersby to ignore them, for the two of them to simply slide away just out of peripheral, but to ask for a big black snake manifesting in the middle of a park to not draw attention, well. Aziraphale is not quite up to the task of containing such a crisis at the moment.

Aziraphale gathers his face in his hands, strokes the lines of his jaw. “Never doubt that you belong, my dear. Never.”

A tongue flicks out of Crowley’s mouth and he slithers even closer still. He might as well be in Aziraphale’s lap.

“Crowley. Really.” Aziraphale feels his eyebrows climb, fondness betraying his attempt at a scandalized tone.

“You’re warm, s’all. No one’s looking,” Crowley says, squeezing at his softness. Aziraphale sucks in a breath, and Crowley huffs a laugh. “Just kiss me, angel.”

Fingers held delicately under his chin, he does.

Crowley pulls away to laugh in earnest. “Oh, it’s stupid and it’s _brilliantly_ human, commerce and servitude and all that bad stuff, truly bad stuff the human mind does and the whole _diamonds are forever_ rig and—what, and selling your own daughter for some _sheep_! But it’s also making meaning, taking something and imagining it better, promises and life, every little tiny bit of _life_ they can squeeze out.”

He looks at Aziraphale then, eyes wide and vulnerable and the Love coming from him overflowing. It’s cascading over Aziraphale, wave after wave of it. It’s intoxicating. Aziraphale gently cups the back of Crowley’s head. Chaste and soft, just holding him.

It starts chaste, anyway. Crowley begins kneading at his stomach.

Pulling back reluctantly, Aziraphale admonishes, “My dear—”

“You want to marry me.”

“Caught on, did you?”

“S _ss_ ay it.”

Crowley squirms closer, throws a leg over Aziraphale’s lap, fingers pressing into Aziraphale between his shoulder blades.

“Yes, you wicked thing,” Aziraphale mutters. “That is—that is the _intent_ , if, oh, if you’re… amenable.”

Crowley licks into his mouth.

With a low moan, Aziraphale cups Crowley’s neck delicately, thumb over his pulse at the base of his throat, stilling him. “Properly, though, and you—I mean, can we? Is that something we can do? Will you?”

“We’ll find a way, angel; it’s what we do. Ask me,” Crowley hisses against his lips. “Properly.”

“Oh, _Crowley_.” With great effort Aziraphale pulls back from him, cradling his face, meeting his eyes. “I want to retire to the stars with you. All the kingdoms of the world pale in the glory I find in my home with you, I…” he gasps as the words flow from him; he doesn’t know what he’s going to say until he’s said it, something at the very core of him taking hold: “ _The winter is past, / the rain is over and gone. / The flowers appear on the earth; / the time of singing has come, / and the voice of the turtledove / is heard in our land. / The fig tree puts forth its figs, / and the vines are in blossom; / they give forth fragrance. / Arise, my love, my fair one, / and come away_.”

The enormity if it takes over the whole of him. He can feel tears wet his cheeks.

“Did you jus _ss_ t…” Crowley’s grip tightens on Aziraphale almost painfully as he shudders.

“ _As an apple tree among the trees of the wood / so is my beloved among young men. / With great delight I sat in his shadow_ ,” Aziraphale continues, leaning in, lips brushing Crowley’s as he recites, deliberate now, and low: “ _And his fruit was sweet to my taste_.”

Crowley chokes. He kisses Aziraphale once, hard. “Y-y—you did. You Song of Solomon’d me,” and oh, he sounds positively scandalized, like he’s not sure if he should be put off, or sit with his own great delight in the deliciously blasphemous nature of an angel quoting Biblical love poems to a demon. “Stings a bit,” he says. It does. In a good way.

“Mm. My darling. My dearest. _Until the day breathes / and the shadows flee_.” Aziraphale cannot bring himself to stop touching, to stop kissing him, pressing soft to him with every few words. “My helpmeet, my—my-my inamorato, my golden one, nonpariel, most esteemed, cherished, beloved, adored beyond measure…”

“Now you’re just lis _ss_ -sting _ssss_ ssynonyms _s_.”

“Oh, do mind your tongue.”

It sits heavy in his mouth for a second, distending his cheek, before he wills it to behave. He pulls a face. “ _You_ mind my—”

“Αστέρι μου,” Aziraphale says, shutting him right up. “Λατρεία μου. The idea of it—of such a human thing as marriage—like all pleasures of this world, this is one I long to share with you. It is not a need, this contract I wish for us to make, but it is a _want_ , and we do ever indulge, don’t we?” He smiles. “We were there before the notion of marriage, we were there when it was brought to being, and we have stood side by side witness to all iterations. There are no two better suited, I should think. Of course I want to marry you, you old serpent. Do you me?”

Crowley’s face crumbles. He nods brokenly, an affirmation low in his throat, and Aziraphale takes his hand, holds it to lips, gives a nod of his own.

“ _Me_. You want to marry _me_ ,” Crowley repeats. I’m a demon, he does not say; nor does he challenge the necessity, the conceit of the thing; two supernatural beings forming an earthly contract. It’s pure nonsensical sentimentality. It’s absurd. Crowley is not arguing. His tone is not mocking, not even close: it’s _wonder_. It pulls at Aziraphale with such fervor.

His fingers flex in Crowley’s hair, holding him tight.

Aziraphale is Projecting, too. So strong even a demon—even if after all their years together the designation seems a slim truth, if one is being honest—can feel it. He knows that look in Crowley. His lax brow, the slur of his words. Dazed and made drunk with it. With Aziraphale’s Love.

“You want to marry me. Live as hu _s_ bands. As—as humans do, what a lark! With all the earthly pleasuress therein. You want to marry me and you defiled angelic ornament, h-Holy regalia for _me_ , you warped an item of _Heaven_ to make a wedding band for a _demon_ , ohh, angel.”

Aziraphale bites at his lips, and then leans in and bites at Crowley’s for good measure.

His intended kisses him, hand cupping his jaw, arm around his waist. They melt into each other, nothing but the two of them under the wide open sky, and with a gentle nudge Crowley is pushing Aziraphale back, kissing, and kissing, and kissing him in soft, shallow, plush sweetness. Aziraphale goes with him, lets himself be lead to lay on the blanket. The sounds of the park all around them faded into the background long ago, a white noise of pleasure; Aziraphale reclines and soaks in it, in the fresh smell of the grass, the flowers. He soaks in Crowley, with the solid brilliance that is the feel of him as he settles himself all along Aziraphale’s front, tangling their legs and folding his hands on his chest, perching his chin with a roguish grin. His gold band gleams in full display.

Oh, the warmth, the weight of him. Aziraphale places a hand on Crowley’s trim waist, struggles for control. “Crowley. It’s not that I don’t—I mean. Oh, such liberties you take. I’ve done my best, but we are in public, dear boy,” he whispers.

“Mmph. Just a bit of a cuddle, angel.”

With a free hand Aziraphale pets at his neck, skin satin-soft under his fingers. Crowley shivers.

“Don’t have to look far to see other couples doing the same. Nothing untoward.”

“I do love that, you know,” Aziraphale muses, idly, and pauses.

Crowley makes a vague noise of inquiry.

“Just—oh, _other couples_ ,” breathes Aziraphale, the words dancing out of him, wide-eyed and wonder full. A little naughty, but free of shame.

If possible, Crowley’s pupils have grown wider. He gives one of his rare, slow blinks.

And just like that, quick as he’d settled down he hops up, and Aziraphale is left gaping at him as he shifts on his feet above him, all flustered energy and stutters. “Eum—ah—whatsit, rain—”

Aziraphale wonders, not for the first time in his long life, and certainly not for the first time involving Crowley, if mental whiplash is a thing.

“Rain?” Aziraphale takes Crowley’s offered hand up absently, allows himself to be pulled to standing. “Darling, I did check—”

“Picnic’ _sss_ about over, yeah? Better pack up and head out, uh, beat the russh? Look-looks like rain.”

Aziraphale frowns. He’d planned so well. “No, no, I’m sure when I checked the forecast…”

Groaning deeply, as if under great burden, flush overtaking him like a bright petal’s bloom, Crowley says, “Well I can’t just say ‘oh, Aziraphale, love of my life, half of my soul, _apple_ of my eye,’” he puts on a voice, a mocking accent: “‘ _fire of my loins_ ,’ et cetera, ‘you looked at me like I was a flipping, flaming _crêpe_ , I can only endure so much, take me to bed,’ can I?”

“‘Fire of my’—” Crowley cuts him off, pulls Aziraphale to him with a hiss of his name. His fingers wiggle back under his waistcoat.

“Anyway, changed my mind,” Crowley utters into a kiss. “Forget ‘nothing untoward’ nothing untoward is rubbish I want to be very very untoward right now, angel.” A squeeze at his middle has Aziraphale giving a little gasp. Crowley darts a tongue out, wets his lips, before he breaks eye contact, placing a kiss to the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth, tilts and murmurs right in his ear, “ _S_ sso, ‘et’s try again: looks like rain.”

Playing along, now, Aziraphale delights: “Oh! Um, yes, oh, I-I think it does, rather. Quite right.”

“There you go.” Crowley leans back only briefly to smile wickedly at him before he tilts in again, limbs loose and playful. Aziraphale feels his grin in their kiss, more teeth than anything.

Without pulling away the least, Aziraphale absently snaps his fingers with his free hand: the basket and its contents fit back together neatly, the glasses and tins shining like new, the blanket folding itself and settling strapped on top. Crowley hums, shivering at the frivolous display of Divine power. All for him. For them.

“Take me to bed, angel.”

Aziraphale places a hand on his chest, pushing him away slightly, tilts his head in consideration. “Oh, but my _dear_ ,” he says playfully. “Aren’t there rules? Should we not postpone, well, _knowing_ each other, until we are wed? Surely we must save something for the honeymoon?”

A beat, a look at Crowley’s distinctly unamused face, and he’s giggling, full with it, a ringing choir of wild, pure ebullience. Tickled at his own puckish jest. He picks up their basket, loops it over his elbow all set to go. Crowley grabs at him, arm over his shoulder. “Angel, angel—” he says, catching his breath on a laugh of his own. He rests his lips at Aziraphale’s temple, murmurs softly, “My affianced. Take me to bed.”

Aziraphale closes his eyes, rests his weight against him. “ _Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved, / truly lovely. / Our couch is green; / the beams of our house are cedar, / our rafters are pine_.”

Their couch is more of a blue, but close enough. Crowley grunts at the spark of the Word, basks into it. “Yes _s_. Home.”

Nothing will fundamentally change when they are wed. As said, they predate the very concept. When, and where, and how is a question for another day (a church wedding is out of the question, if only to spare the indignity of Crowley 'walking' down the aisle, though for the salaciousness of it it may yet be in the running) but marriage is to be another declaration on a long, long list, a list with additions made over the span of time itself, crossed out and re-rewritten, underlined, twice—their coiled existence is a celebration, a triumph in the face of destruction, an ongoing toast to the world in their every action, every act of love.

Their rings sing to each other in the light of the lazy afternoon.

Joy swirls around them; they are Complete with it, made whole in each other. Arm-in-arm they lean to each other for support, as they have ever done, and make their way out of the park.

**Author's Note:**

> The Greek is αστέρι μου (asteri mu) = my star & λατρεία μου (latria mu) = my adored (an expression of a most profound love) and Aziraphale quotes from the Bible's Song of Solomon 1 & 2; the title is from 8, New Revised Standard Version.
> 
> [Come say hi!](https://yolkinthejump.tumblr.com)
> 
> I appreciate all comments, great and small.


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